Now That It Is Over
by a vestige of peace
Summary: Perhaps happy endings were always overrated. Or maybe, some aren't meant to have one at all. Kagome wonders... Sesshoumaru knows. So now they lie, broken; a bundle of bones at the bottom of the well. Sess/Kag
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: _I do not own Inuyasha. _**

**Author's Note: **I am re-revising all of this, so that I can finally finish this thing. :) Thank you for all the support so far-** Ashteldar's Jewel**, thank you so much- I dedicate this revised chapter to you, I am sorry I haven't finished this thing for so long :(.

**Gmasangel**, I will, I promise, and I really might not have if you had not reviewed. So, thank you.

**Homara,** they will _definitely_ get together, in fact the whole point of this story is that that was what was always MEANT to happen. ;) It is really dark, though, I know, and I've realized that I can't really change that at this point. It gonna continue to be dark- though not necessarily depressing- until the end.

**Taixi**, Thank you!!! I wish you were a signed member so that I could reply to you really, and know that you would see my reply- but, as for your question: yes, that's the twist. Will he remember her? I think secretly, we all know the answer though. Haha.

**Flames Chaos and Wolf**, as you command, I kept that ending despite having written an alternate one. Thanks!

**merlyn1382,** it's… gonna be dark, but not depressing. There is a very predictable happy ending, but the whole thing is supposed to be dinged with a bitter-sweetness, because… well, you'll see. :D

Love you guys!!!

Those of you who have written fanfiction before know just how much a word of approval or constructive criticism means to the author. **_So please, please review.3_**

*****There is a reference here to an episode very early on in the series when Kikyou's body was remade by a witch and Kagome placed under a soul-transfer spell, when Inuyasha's cry of "Kikyou" activated the process and ended up with momentarily de-souling Kagome.

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"...it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unresolvable problems- the ones that make you truely who you are- that [you're] ready..."

-andrew boyd

**Forgotten**

Kagome stepped through the well, with a spider in her heart.

The battle was ended, and the time had flown and it had passed. In what seemed like a dream, she had stumbled through rock, through meadow, through plush, cold, whitened earth and had fallen through a well.

It was dirty, she thought, noticing for the first time the state of the well's floor. It was littered with not only bones and dust, but pieces of garbage strewn around- the meaningless bits of hurried good-byes, and empty memories.

In the dim light of the enclosed well, the corner of a yellow something gleamed at her. Unconsciously, she reached out a trembling hand to pull it out-

_"You said you brought me enough Ramen for a month! Stupid wench!"_

Kagome gasped, a mere thread of an exhalation.

_"I did! I'm sorry, I must have dropped some of it on the way!"_

_"Careless wench! How could you drop a whole box without noticing?"_

_"-Well maybe if someone hadn`t rushed m-"_

_"-Oh, but wait! If you weren't so careless, the jewel would still be intact!"_

_"That wasn't my fault! Would you stop blaming everything on me? Be grateful I even get you your stupid ramen-"_

"_- and DROPPED IT!"_

"_I said I`m sorry, you stupid dog! Does that mean nothing to you?"_

"_No!"_

"_Fine, how about this, then- SIT BOY!"_

She stared at the half sunken plastic as if it had stung her. Shuffling back until the cold stone wall grazed her hunched back, she huddled her knees to herself, holding herself close, chest still stinging from where she had clawed at it, hurtling through the portal. A tiny trickle of blood or sweat, she did not know which, traveled, haltingly down between her breasts. Inside, something writhed, stretched and exalted in the numb nothingness there. Folding into herself, pushing her legs, arms and head closer, Kagome tried in vain to vanquish the vacant space_, squeeze it out of herself_, but like a gaping canyon, it remained yawning.

She was impure. Naraku had finally succeeded in his key mission: to taint the one creature, of all his enemies, who had the purity to cleanse the Jewel. To cleanse the world.

But now, it no longer meant anything.

Naraku had lost the war; the jewel was gone; the wish had been made, and Kagome's pain was her own.

A meaningless, stiffling reality, overshadowed by the greatness of all that had been saved.

Inuyasha was human again; and Kikyou revived; All the wrongs that were done on the land of the rising Sun had been vanquished and washed away with powder pink rain. Just like that, everything in the world had tipped over, and Kagome had found herself untouched by the rain, still standing, but more alone than she had ever been.

Brows trembling into a feeble frown, she thought, no, the world had tipped over, and it had been _she, _not everyone else, who had been thrown overboard. _Just stand on that plank, Kagome, hold that jewel, make a wish- and _jump.

A sharp sting spasmed in the arch of her nose, and into her sinuses. Nostrils flaring slightly, Kagome was distantly surprised at the sudden appearance of water in her eyes. The tears gathered, blurring her vision, and maintained their cohesion at the lip of her lids, wavering. Turning her face abruptly from the littered ground, Kagome refused to blink.

Behind the tears, behind the wavering darkness, a stream of the same scenes swam through her thoughts, covering the dim images really before her, no matter which way she turned her face. Like the clarity of a moment before you think you are going to die, she saw the events- muted and hushed in case her battered, broken heart should catch their treacherous whispers- replaying on an incoherent film laid before her...

At first, there had been nothing but chaos everywhere, the toxic miasma scratching at her skin, her eyes, her throat, as she had blundered through, squinting through watering eyes, at where she could see the purple outline of the Jewel shining, even in its blackness.

The flailing pieces of writhing flesh, the unending stream of dead, dying and struggling youkai around her, were all merging into a blur. But somehow, she had slipped through: a glowing torch of purity, with a single minded purpose, whom nothing else had touched. Maybe it had been Inuyasha who had cleared her path, or maybe it had been a flying Hiraikotsu whirling in the air around her like a sacrament of protection, before all was lost.

Or perhaps, even then, they had all been forgetting, even then her role in the play had been drawing to a close. Perhaps she had fallen off the plank, before she could jump.

Kagome wondered if she had looked like a ghost, walking through the throngs of fighting men and women, humans and demons with her Holy light wrestling towards Naraku's deathly aura.

-But then, suddenly, the jewel had been in her hand, the vial around her neck bursting, the small shards shinning as they had flown to their core. The blackness had swirled, something distant and looming screamed—a movement, and a flurry of colors in her periphery-- and the little marble in her hand was indigo and blue and green, yellow- she had closed her eyes and _wished- _and it shone a blinding white-.

There was a _crack!_- like a fissure formed on something unbreakable, and she had felt as if a bomb had went off in her hand, blasting through her, though she had stood very still- _insubstantial, timeless, soulless, a ghost of what is not yet, among those long dead_.

_"Wrong, wrong, all wrong," _Kagome imagined the last breath of the vanishing marble whispering to her. It was not her place to wish, her time to wish, and it was not her wish, would never be her wish, because she was all wrong....

And then, she had felt herself, hurtling from somewhere far off- disconnected, and rapidly gaining speed towards a glowing _something- _black hair, a flaring, short green skirt, and still hands, holding a ball of bursting light-.

Kagome's soul had quailed in her uncontrolled fall, recognizing something familiar, something it remembered-

_Don't say it, don't say it-!_

_"Kikyou!" _the cry had cut through her, plunging like an icy blade inside her confused mind, and pulled something vital out. It felt like her breath being knocked out, except she had been breathing, huge gasps wracking through her entire body. She had kept thinking that there was a sense of deja-vu to the whole occurrence, some heavy lump trepidation screaming _I told you so!_

And as she had looked around her, eyes wide open, unable to speak but needing the arms of someone, _anyone, _around her, to feel safe, to get back what had left- whatever it had been- - all their faces had been turned away.

And Kagome had known, she _knew _without a shred of bewilderment, or reminding that none of them recognized her, anymore. That they had loved her, and they had protected her, once, but they had done all that they could have for this one moment alone, and now with the deed done, the sum of all those weighty nuances were gathering together, and shrinking… like a sea of gulls that flew away at a falling rock, and clustered into a speck until they were nothing in the sky- a fleeting, forgetful thing.

And it had _hurt. _Worse than having her soul ripped apart again. Worse than the world ending.

Worse than not belonging.

_"Fix it," _Kagome had wished. But- _wrong, wrong, wrong... _it had not been for her to wish, she should not have wished- "_wrong," _the Shikon had whispered. _Wrong girl, wrong miko, wrong time-._

So Kagome had stopped, too late, and stood still for an eternity. And when that time had passed, too, she had turned slowly, aware of the thorny remains of battered utopia she had just carved out, had lacerated in place- and she had walked straight.

…The world around her was rewinding, but she dared not look too closely. For the sake of her aching heart, she had looked away, and away again, wherever her sight had rested.

Not on Sango, _fixed_- who was now sister to someone else; not Miroku, whose healed white palms- _fixed- _shone whole on dead bones.

Not on little- _little, happy, lopsided- _Rin who lay as if in sleep at the feet of a crying wolf, the shadow of a red eyed taiyoukai covering her bare, white feet. She had looked away again- even the sight of his deranged expression not able to disconnect her from her own vacancy- and saw the sword he held: a blur of Tenseiga, hurling over the little human corpse, over and over again, to no effect.

Had she run to save Kouga- that Rin? Kagome remembered wondering, through a daze. Something cold and sharp had slipped from her fingers and hit the ground soundlessly- the chain Naraku had used to hold the jewel. Blood seeped through the cracks of the earth and pooled around the rusted chain.

_A gentle tremor rippled through the earth- the aura of the last of its evil, still alive, catching at the flow of time, as it prepared for the last lunge, at the brink, like the last crystalline grain rolling off the curve of an hourglass._

And then, Kagome had swiveled the direction of her gaze again, from one sword to another, a more dear sword, and she had seen crusted, red hakamas, a torn familiar haori, and black, _pitch black hair, _moving faintly in the remorseless wind--

And she wished once more- prayed, begged, pleaded- futily, the wrong wish, finally, her heart breaking into a million irreparable pieces.

Whipping, long strands, trapped in firm white hands, Inuyasha's head lay, unmoving, peacefully on the blood soaked lap of Kikyou. Human, alive, soul-full Kikyou, who had forgiven, and could now love with a fiery passion once more, and Kagome's fingers had twitched. Little balls of white light escaped from her clutches, as a gaping vacancy had stretched inside her.

The spider's desperate and quailing spirit had still spun in the wind, but Kagome had no longer been perceptive. She had felt, saw, and knew nothing else anymore, as her soul had seeped slowly from her, fleeing to its true owner, done with Kagome_, like all the rest of them,_ now with the ending of the Shikon-no-Tama. And her purity had faltered, helplessly grasping at the void left behind by her traitorous soul.

_And it was at the edge, the very end of this world, the lip of a too-full, gaping well, that finally the wish flickered and fixed its last-._

Tripping, insubstantial and caught in the whims of a Fate much more apparent now, Kagome had stumbled into a black hole, the enveloping timelessness swallowed her-

_Fixed._

_And the spider lunged.

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**e/n: Please Review!**  
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	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, Kagome or Sesshoumaru. Although, where the latter is concerned, sometimes I really wish I did. **

**A/N: So, again, these new chapters are the same ones but tweaked a little here and there. Nothing really crucial. I'm just trying to re-write it with some tiny additions which will help me make it a not-so emo ending. I'll try to update these for the next few days, since they are reeally short little chappies, so I would really appreciate feedback and/or encouragement where you see fit. :)**

"AND, like a dying lady lean and pale,  
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,  
Out of her chamber, led by the insane  
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,  
The moon arose up in the murky east  
A white and shapeless mass."

**The Moon- Percy B Shelley **

**Aimless**

And when she was gone, he kept a new ward.

He told himself he _kept_ it, because when the lord of the Western lands found himself offered no choice, he could do nothing but pretend. It was not as if he was very practiced at it, either, so Sesshoumaru tired. He tired hard, and did not allow himself a moment of doubt, of anger, betrayal- though, brimming below his steely surface, there was plenty of all- and focused all of his energy on deceiving himself.

That this was just like keeping another ward. And that he _chose _to keep it.

Like Rin, he told himself, _just like Rin_. And with a pang through his middle, he felt the ward agreed with him. Since he could not seem to be able to stop it- beating feebly against him, copying the steady drumming of his own heart, he gave it a voice. Like Rin.

Just like Rin.

It had raised itself before him out of dull nothingness- a bleary silence echoing inside his bones, and begun to hum and resonate- _talking to him-_ reminding him of fleeting things he had forgotten about: a half-moon smile, the tangy smell of rotting flowers. And with each remembrance, it had whirled into waves. Tumbling, tossing, churning inside him, until he could do nothing about its incessant struggle.

Sesshoumaru felt helpless- with all his might, all his strength, the perfection of his killing art, he could not fight this-

He was as helpless as he had first been at the sight of the distant, mute, Rin.

Except this time, it was so very different. Threaded through the deceit the truth refused to be quenched: this ward was _nothing like Rin_.

Silent and mocking, it brought him no flowers, and no childish queries. Though he gave it a voice, and heard it in the undertones of his own thoughts- it did not ask him if he had been to the moon, or if ladybugs grew out of trees.

This one was not gentle; this one did not heed to his wishes. This one did not care for him the way_ she_ had.

It did not speak to him, or dive into the folds of his silken hakamas, calling him _sama _with fish-breath wreathed through a sing-song voice.

_This one _had not come to him bruised and fragile with crude offerings and a heart full of gold.

Like a crippling plague, his new ward had come to him, stabbing him in the chest. It had stifled him with its silent domineering; with the last fading smells of little dead white feet, bending him with its burden, little by insignificant little until he wanted to rip through his own ribs and claw it with every ounce of hate he could conjure.

But Sesshoumaru did allow himself this truth. Beyond his immortal strength and the pounding of his fierce youki, he felt the powdery substance of his bones for the first time, the microscopic chinks that threatened to spread a crack and break him-

And he did not think he could handle the truth, could accept the truth, allow it to permeate his self-deceit and wake him up from the precarious state of numbing half-consciousness.

So, instead, Sesshoumaru did nothing at all.

_…Just like with Rin…_

Like the last mistake, he allowed this one to creep up around him and build its little cage. A cage so fragile, he could have smashed it with a brushing hand- but a cage so carefully woven, so beautifully captivating, that he simply allowed it be, until a little door was built, and it, with him, was locked into place.

As he watched the world disappear behind its dim walls, Sesshoumaru retreated into the shadow of his new ward. He closed his eyes, and wove moonflowers and a tinkling voice through the skeletal cage.

And eventually, the waves settled. Inside the murky chasm that was left behind by shrill human laughter, it found the pit of his bottomless heart, and its fight, too, subsided.

Like a wounded child it crooned, within him. In the dark of the night, beneath the canopy of leafy skies, he could hear it crying. And when the keening sounds and burden of pooling tears became too heavy, he would close cold, amber eyes, and sleep.

ßà

He dreamed of wolves now, too, though he did not know why.

Lord Sesshoumaru felt afraid, for the first time in his life-- shaking and gasping away from hungry yellow teeth as he felt them chasing him, doing his utmost to flee. On feet too big, body too small, too frail, atmosphere too thick; devoid of all youki, he fled like a man.

The forest loomed over him at night, the sanctuary of its brambled, winding paths pulling him in deeper, calling to him, enticing him to hide, to lose himself in its labyrinthine paths. As if, if he were lost the teeth would snap no more.

If he were lost, he would find the scent, the weak human, dying scent that would undo him, no more. Not again.

So, every night, he would break through its shadowy perimeter, in desperate dreams. Hoping- _wishing, begging, pleading- _Sesshoumaru would run beneath its harboring glade, fling all thoughts away, try to submerse himself into the unpredictability, the chaos, like he had once seen a little girl, hovering in his shadow do.

But he would not get lost, though he tried, for the scent that held him by a rope. By that memory- that face which he sought so hard to learn from, and cut himself away from.

Dizzied, and consumed by the decaying fumes, Sesshoumaru would try to get out, before the end. Every time; every night- but the whole world would be the forest and though he knew every turn, could feel with such clarity his proximity to the dying center- the perimeters would evade him.

Sesshoumaru was trapped. And the trees and the branches would creak and convulse around him, spindly fingers bending over and digging into the ground, to hold him in, no matter which exit he sought.

And at the hub, the very center of things would be the human rag doll that reeked of death, and of blame.

ßà

When the sun came up, Sesshoumaru breathed again, and the clawing, dying, leaden thing inside festered and sunk deeper into his flesh.

Like a toothing child, it whimpered and fidgeted in its restless slumber. And as its dull, small teeth slowly whitened through agonized, tender flesh, it bit him. Not a gentle mewing, but ruthless, and desperate, puckering the walls of his thawing heart.

When the sun came up, the walls were streaked with blood. But he could bear the pain better, because it was no longer dark.

Sesshoumaru wandered, aimless, for a new purpose, a new anchor to keep him coming back to some home base, but the universe was unrelenting. Brother, father, mother and child gone, Sesshoumaru walked, shrunken, inside the shell-like expanse of his Pride.

Without a leash, he felt like a speck, an undying, unchanging, speck in the ocean, hurled and shifted forever by the whims of the only thing that loomed larger than even him; the one thing he could not fight, had never thought to fight.

He needed someone, something, to creep into the rigid corridors of his heart, and breathe into him an inflated life boat.

For one who lived forever, he felt like he had not life _in _him. Like a rock he could not die, but only because he was dead to begin with. A wraith, is what he was: a constant, beautiful, and all powerful wraith, who, for all the changes he enforced upon others, would always be left untouched, and unknown.

He_ craved_ for his Rin; for another speck, less significant than he. He wanted to be tied to another such, who, floating, with the weight of his stony existence, would become more significant than he. An anchor. Like an island, a changeable, inconsistent, fleeting surface to bind him to the earth, towing him down from his Lunar realm, to show him the constancy of hunger and pain; happiness, and genuine, grateful devotion.

An imperfect being, from who's every scar, every rusty fissure, seeped forth the life-giving beams of sunlight.

Sesshoumaru wandered, until every day became the same.

He grew older, with every step he took, but as ever, it meant nothing to him.

And the changeling inside him continued to grow, tearing more and more away, with every blow.

But like all wards, all foes, every other person in his life, Sesshoumaru waited with a tired patience, for the day that this one would die, as well.

He could have killed a thousand children and made them his slaves; He could have unsheathed his sword and given life to a thousand more dead, but they were _not_ the same.

When he touched his hand to his ethereal sword, it would not even hum and glow to life anymore. Alone and undying, it took all of the sword's might to keep its lord alive. Beside it, Sesshoumaru carried the sheathed Tetseiga, token of yet another self-deceit- the first of many, and Sesshoumaru had used his poison to sodder the sheath and the handle together so that it was never unsheathed again.

Sesshoumaru told himself that this was his way of welding that distasteful fragment of his life closed forever; to remind himself of the swords souvenir-like quality, to serve as an emblem of a lesson learnt, but it was yet another lie. A desperate, and feeble move to accredit the permence of one more death to himself. A platform for his sanity. His pride.

Because despite all the many lies; the glue behind the immovable mask of indifference placed carefully over his face, sometimes, when Sesshoumaru would stop reminding himself of his myriad deceits, and made-up reasons, his soft, wandering step would take him back.

Back to shrouded little hill, the brief open meadow in the middle of a sun-dappled somber forest, where three graves formed a half circle- like a wide, half-moon smile- around a withered, reeking bone-eater's well.

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REVIEW. **PLEASE.** I would really appreciate the feedback and/or encouragment. :)

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	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. No really, I don't have him living in my fanfics. **

**A/N: Thank you Taixi for the wonderfully long review. As for your question- considering that the chapters of this story are so tiny, I think the small changes might alter the meaning of the story...ultimately. However, this chapter is largely unchanged, so don't even bother re-reading it. I put a bit more effort into the previous two... so maybe it would matter if you didn't read it? Honestly, I have major memory problems so I can't even remember what parts I changed. :S But, anyhoo, no, if you have already read the whole thing, you don't have to re-read these revised versions. The gist is still the same... basically they are lead ups explaining just how un-chipper the eventual happy ending turned out to be- and how the two find consolation in each other. So, as far as a "plot line"- and I use the term _very_ loosely for this story- is concerned, no re-reads necessary.**

** :)  
**

"let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing." Kahlil Gibran, _The Prophet_

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**The Place of Neither Here, Nor There**

At some point the weight of realization had crashed upon her. Cowering, at the base of the scaling stone walls, it had thrown Kagome right on her knees.

She felt… sick. As if her own body repulsed her, and she retched, panting, gasping gags extracting bile from her empty stomach. Heaving to empty out, not food and acid, but rather that poisonous hollowness- the dull echo of a missing part that filled her revolted stomach and urged it to release. To squeeze and hurl- because it had to do _something_.

Her sadness seeped through the holes in her heart and moved beyond the control of her mind.

And it _hurt. _

With a sharpness that was nothing like the blunt stab of seeing the eyes of her love longing for another; of watching, filled with horror and guilt, the piling bodies of dead and wounded around her, everyday. It was the stabbing pain of losing meaning.

The pain of a razor sharp guillotine, slicing through the air and snapping, with a shock, the sinews of her life. Of fading to nothingness- and finally, in that frail existence getting crippled by the suddenly overwhelming hurtles of years old pains, long ignored, finally coming to catch up.

She hunched over on all fours, tears springing in her eyes as her esophagus burned with useless acid. She spat whatever was in her mouth out, trying to breathe, body arrested by its own self-destructive reflexes.

Kagome wondered if it was still considered a Samurai's death, when one's body took matters so in its own hands.

But then she remembered that she was a Samurai who's quest had been seen to an end, and her honor was intact. She could not even find the meaning to take her own life, because by all definition, her life was perfect. Flawlessly executed, with just the right bit of romance, tragedy and the surreal to spice it for a good tale.

What an awful ending now, if she died, Kagome thought.

It was only her heart that had been shredded into a thousand pieces- and that, in all the tales, had nothing to do with the audience. It was backstage technicality; little fragments meant to be dusted off, dumped and forgotten behind the black shadows of the curtains.

Except- she was off the stage now, the show was over. And here, in the pit of all her glories, Kagome felt like she was sitting on top of all her thousands, dumped, fragments. And there was no longer anywhere big enough to fit them all, but in the yawning, hollowness gaping inside her chest.

Kagome moaned into the silence, falling onto her side in exhaustion.

Out of unbeatable, wretched habit, Kagome tilted her head to up, to squint blinded eyes towards the opening above- _where am I? _

Not a canopy of twinkling stars but the dim dankness of moldy wood.

_I'm home. _

She felt small as she thought that. An insignificant, tiny speck, sitting at the bottom of a well, where she was neither here nor there. Souta, mom, grandpa- they were less than a mile away, and yet she felt _so small _; unremembered, sitting upon the mound of her own fleeting identity. It had been here that it had all began, after all. Right here, that a broken, decaying centipede had awoken her destiny within her, and made her something special. Given her the existence of not just one- but two worlds.

But at fifteen, one did not appreciate the universe for the gifts it bestowed upon one.

If she had known then, seeing the strange boy pinned to the tree, going up to pick and prod at his alien person- if she had known then, how much he would ever mean to her- she would have grabbed the vines that wound around him, crept beneath them, and she would have sealed herself to his side. She would have clutched and held on, like a shadow, and never moved away.

She would have wished for them to be swallowed into the tree and sealed, asleep, for eternity, and gotten rid of the treacherous jewel once and for all.

How funny, she thought, the feeling resounding through her, that she should sit here, again, when all that identity and meaning was snatched back away from her. The well that made her citizen of two worlds was suddenly her sanctuary, her coffin, as she teetered in the place of neither here nor there.

Looking back up at the hole that would lead her into Modern Japan- _home- _she felt a rising panic travel through her fatigued mind. If she was going to be neither here, nor there, she would rather lie, at the bottom of the well _there. _Tired breath escalating, Kagome felt the honden roof weigh down on her, the walls pressing, and the stirring of panicked claustrophobia take hold of her senses.

What was she doing here? At the bottom of the well... but she was never at the bottom of any well when she had to be somewhere else. Pushing her knees against the ground, she tried to sink herself into the portal through sheer force. Why wasn't she leaving? She had to go... she had to....

-She needed to see the stars. _To absorb their feeble light, so filled with hope, and allow her own heart a small glimpse of that hope._ She wanted to be broken _there_, where Inuyasha could come and pick her up again. She had to go back, had to take one more chance, had to try again; say sorry, say I love you, please don't leave me, I will never go back again…

With shaking hands, Kagome beat the ground feebly, willing the starry light to erupt once more, and transfer her back to where she belonged. _Home, _she thought wildly, _this is not home! Take me home! _She scratched, pounded and raked the damp earth with her fingers desperately, letting horrified tears pour from her eyes and wash the disbelief from her face.

_Inuyasha! Inuyasha- please, no, don't leave, come back, come back come back…_

"No!" she cried, her voice cracking.

Something sharp caught at the end of her fingernail and she felt it dig into the skin underneath. Stopping her crazy efforts Kagome gasped at the broken piece of rock that had embedded itself on her finger tip. The stone shined pink for a small moment and it made her panic pause in surprise. Jewel, she suddenly remembered, something wavering and hushed up clicking into place.

She could not go back without the jewel. Something cold and unwelcome trickled down her spine, curving it down, until her face almost rested on the backs of her hands.

"No," she whispered, again. A small, warm tear budding on the end of her eyelash splashed. It was so stupid that she should have forgotten that. Staring at her filthy fingers, with the strangely polished stone still glistening on the finger tip, Kagome felt the brief rush of adrenaline flow out of her like air from a punctured balloon.

("No... no...") Of course. She could not go back.

Settling back against the dry well's wall, Kagome rubbed at the spider in her chest again. Throat burning, nose pinched, she swallowed down the dam of endless tears that pushed against her sinuses. She would wait. Inuyasha could come through the well. Clenching her aching jaws, Kagome desperately closed her mind to all other thoughts. She would wait. She could wait.

He always came in the end. He always came when she needed him the most.

Another tear seeped and swelled through the crack of the lids, with the effort of shutting off the memories threatening at the precipice.

A shaky whimper echoed.

_But why is he so late?_

Somewhere deep beneath all the layers of denial; all the shock, the curtains, the walls, the chains and iron will, Kagome closed the mind's eye to the image of black, _black_ hair, deathly white hands and blood, blood, all that red blood soaking through Kikyou's lap.

Somewhere deep down, she closed a door with trembling hands, against the place where she knew that, this time, Inuyasha would not be coming to rescue her, because he could not.

***

**AUTHOR'S PLEA: Please REVIEW!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**Note: Inspiration for this chapter:**

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been  
A place that has to be believed to be seen  
You could have flown away  
A singing bird in an open cage  
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Walk on, walk on  
What you've got they can't deny it  
Can't sell it, or buy it  
Walk on, walk on  
Stay safe tonight

And I know it aches  
And your heart it breaks  
And you can only take so much  
Walk on, walk on

All That You Can't Leave Behind- U2

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_**"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."- Anais Nin

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**The End that Came**

_The gash was really not so bad. _

_Sesshoumaru, twelve years old, stared at it, eyes wide with wonder, and more than a little fear. It… hurt him. He was fascinated by this. He watched intently, as sinew by thread, the flesh latched together, pulling itself to its former pristine state, leaving nothing but the stain of clotting red as the markers of its past failings. _

_A keen burning sensation traveled along the edges of the healing wound on his arm. He had raked it, accidentally, with his own claws. Puberty and growing sudden malicious devices of torture upon his person was going to take some getting used to. _

_Beyond the overpowering smell of pungent iron and copper, he recognized cinnamon in his periphery._

_There was a soft flurry, of silken hair thrown in the wind, and then the owner of the scent murmured in his ear: "__Do not fear it, Sesshoumaru, it is only a wound. It will be perfect as new in a few minutes." _

_Sesshoumaru turned in his mother's arms and looked up at her with a little puzzled frown marring his little immaculate features. _

"_I know that."_

_Mother smiled. Of course he knew, but she had not missed the hint of surprised fear in her son's eyes, as he took in the first serious scratch he had ever received in his short life. Normally, the small nicks and grazes would heal over before he could even register the discomfort, but this time the feeling was making a sharper impression on her boy. She was happy to have him learn._

_Those who are destined to wield their wills like a sword should know how the cut felt. She thought her boy was getting a well deserved lesson. _

"_That is pain, Sesshoumaru. When your youki is not fast enough to seal the opening of a wound, your brain sends out a siren. It is pain, that which you feel, my Sesshoumaru. Do not fear it. It is what makes you alive."_

_The little frown deepened. _

"_But I have never … pained… before. I have been alive."_

"_Ah," she said, bumping her head thoughtfully against his, "but that is not quite like the raw life you feel while that cut is still open, ne?"_

_Sesshoumaru thought about this. Around the tender skin he could feel the regular beating of his pulse as if someone was tapping a tiny drumstick against the open wound repeatedly. It insisted upon capturing his attention, and he found that unlike his normal pulse, which had long ago faded into the recesses of his awareness, he could not ignore this gentle throbbing. He looked more closely at his wound and small fingers flexed in discomfort. A little coil of self-pity turned in his belly. _

_It… _hurt_. _

_..._

Lord Sesshoumaru smelled the sun in the air. Morning had arrived.

Through fuzzy thoughts, Sesshoumaru registered that something was acutely different about this morning. Running a figurative hand over the mental blind spot, Sesshoumaru caught at wisps of cool, wind kissed hair. _His mother. _Brows furrowing, his head automatically tilted fractionally to the side- as if he could tip the obscurities out of his unconscious. His own hair, slack and still throughout the long night, flowing to accommodate the movement, was picked up by the gentle breeze and grazed the underside of his left arm.

_A cut. _He remembered now. A cut; a memory. A dream.

Curling long white fingers into an easy fist, Sesshoumaru's eyes opened to watch the creeping light catch the gleam of his claws as they pierced into the flesh of his palms.

The air stilled.

It hurt.

He breathed.

In the first glints of the dawning sun, a phantom scent of freshly caught fish on a long-ago fire tickled at his awareness and the ward he kept inside him turned in its sleep, gently scraping the memory away. And it hurt, again.

Focusing inward, Sesshoumaru became acutely aware of his own pulsing heartbeat.

He lived.

For the first time in a very long while, Sesshoumaru felt the bittersweet humanity of a smile catch the corners of his lips. _He lived. He hurt. _He had a name for his ward at last_: Pain_. It was pain that lacerated the surface of his heart day and night; pain that had settled there, unwelcome and unmovable in that place where Rin used to live.

The dewy wind of the morning swirled around him, and in its midst, he thought he caught the faint scent of cinnamon and daffodils.

Taking another breath, Sesshoumaru unfolded his body from its sleeping position, against the withering oak. Yellow, orange and golden leaves floated gently to the ground around him. Amber eyes followed their slow fall, almost absently. A broken leaf detached itself from the folds of his hakamas and swayed in the air above a shrunken bud of a flower. His eyes narrowed in wonderment. Were not flowers supposed to be dead by this time in the season? he thought.

A survivor.

Narrowed eyes were joined by a frown. Reaching out with a speed much too fast for normal youkai eyes to follow, he caught the leaf between his index and middle fingers, right before it landed on the valiant shoot. Pausing speculatively over the enduring bud, Seshoumaru smelled the moisture still inside it and the slow taint of decay that further sweetened its aroma. It's petals did not respond to the rising sun, but instead held tight to each other, enclosing a dying core within.

_A survivor, _he thought again, dripping a touch of his venom over the dying petals.

It would suffer no more.

Straightening once more, Sesshoumaru turned cold, fiery eyes to the path of his meaningless pilgrimage and closed his eyes once more. As the tightened muscles of his body relaxed from their night long position, The youkai Lord thought was struck by the wayward thought that he was rather like that flower: tight and resilient, awake at a time when his world died around him.

Keeping his eyes closed, Sesshoumaru pondered his own existence for the first time in two hundred and fifty years: a lone taiyoukai, shining amid the sea of lesser creatures. He had no equal since Rin was gone. He had no equal since Inuyasha had gone. He was like a burnt, fallen piece of a star, upturned from his realm and sitting in the bottom of an empty abyss.

Turning his head and looking at the sizzling patch of ground where the shoot of flower had ended, he thought the universe was surely telling him something.

And how simple, the universe assumed it all to be. He was the Great InuYoukai of the West- who could ever do him the favor he bestowed upon the little plant? Tightening his muscles, Seshoumaru let his Youki flare in dim frustration. There was a creak from one of the nearby trees, thawed too fast by his aura from its frozen slumber, as it broke through the bark.

Who could ever kill him?

_A valiant survivor, pushing on against the odds of its existence._

Only, Sesshoumaru did not feel particularly valiant. He felt… over accomplished. Like he had seen too much, done too much, said too much and heard far too much. He was nowhere near as old as his father had been, but his head felt full. Amid the hollowness, the mindlessness, he felt _full_. Like a dehydrated man in the middle of the ocean; he felt lost within his own body. And there was just too much.

So much, and he had so little to give that the unbalance forced him in a hunch, dragging the ocean behind him, day by day.

He continued to stand still in one spot, overseeing the justice of death.

There was nothing valiant about him.

It was never that simple, Sesshoumaru told the universe- a note of pleading behind his placid eyes.

But the unbidden, rare dose of self-doubt, awakened, continued to probe its delicate fingers into his consciousness. Hesitating, the demon lord noted that it was also the first time in a long while that another emotion- frustration- dared to peek above the leaden Pain.

And so, streaming down the universe's wayward tangent, Sesshoumaru allowed himself to hope. There was something acutely difference about this day, he remembered thinking upon waking up. _Perhaps,_ Sesshoumaru thought, perhaps the universe knew that, too. And today really was different; the universe whispering its secrets after so long withholding.

Perhaps this endless, tireless, meaningless journey had a rest. These days, the aching nights, the mindless killings and musings and memories and hurts and lives- they all had an end, too.

He had walked for so long, he thought the universe owed him a World's End. An edge, a cliff. A death.

Sesshoumaru watched as the last of the sizzling died in the cold, and a burrowed, burnt patch of dark earth remained at the base of the tree.

_Yes. _He would suffer no more.

Closing his eyes again, and taking a last deep breath, Sesshoumaru thought that the day of the end had at last arrived.

With a scaly turn, his changeling agreed.

Taking all the myriad of smells that dwelled around him in, Sesshoumaru let it soak through his pores and dampen every hurt, every jagged scar that he carried into relief. Like the thirsty floor of a swamp, he sucked all of the life that he felt, in every crack, every fissure, and he exhaled it in a weak farewell.

Amid the many smells, he caught the welcome one of decay. Though he would never die; his light never extinguish, the scent of this forbidden pleasure lured him, now. With purposeful steps, Sesshoumaru turned, and he walked in the direction away from the sunlight, facing the shadow perimeter of the trees once more.

Without pausing, he walked.

Under the shade, he thought about wolves and little human rag dolls. He smelled death, and this time he did not run away, or imagine biting canines. He walked towards it, and without a instant of pause, awash with relief from somewhere dreary and heavy inside his chest, Sesshoumaru let the hurt that would undo him rake over.

Beneath the branches, through roots and over brambles, his shadow flickered and it dispersed.

He walked on.

"_But that is not quite like the raw life you feel while that cut is still open, ne?"_

Two hundred forty-eight years later, he nodded his head to his mother. _Hai. _It hurt, and so he lived.

And if he could live, then maybe, just maybe, he could die as well.

With each step Sesshoumaru took, the smell fastened onto the threads of his kimono. With each step he took, he felt every swipe, ever blow, every cut he had ever delivered, and his sword, and his armor re-awakened, washed once more in reminiscent blood. He smelt all the phantom deaths merging with the fimiliar scents of decay emenating from the crude grave near him. And as they assaulted his sensed, he felt each cut, each blow, each swipe on himself.

Like a cut open soldier, at the precipice of death, he called to the vultures.

With every step, he shed one more title, and donned one more scar.

He walked on.

And then-

There it was, at last. The hub, the end, and source of all the scent. It was not a rag doll, after all, and Sesshoumaru found that he was glad for that. Walk into the glade, all defenses dropped, and more naked than he had ever been in life, Sesshoumaru breathed in the smell of bones. It was a well: the bone-eater's well; Reeking of dead youkai, he felt the bottled life inside him throb with pleasure.

_Sesshoumaru. _Destroyer.

It was perfect. The perfect tomb for his fractured soul.

As he took the last few steps to the well's lip, Sesshoumaru felt the exhaustion of a quarter of a millennium fill his hollowed bones. He was _tired. _

Gazing down at the shadowed well, he thought: _A resting place, at last. _

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**_Please, Please Review._**

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	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Inuyasha ain't meine. **

**A/n: This chapter has been snipped out of the original and placed here upon the request of Hokisai. Thank you!  
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"And I got a strong urge to fly.  
But I got nowhere to fly to." - Pink floyd, _Nobody Home_

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_

There was no time in the place where he lived.

Eons and minuscule particles of moments passed and returned.

And for the first time in a very long time, Sesshoumaru felt glad in his existence. He did not think much, and neither did he recall alot of what displeased him so much before, but he did acutely feel the gladness. The restfulness.

The Peace.

No words, no wars, no needs; just a blank and very basic state of simply_ being._

At odd moments, when his mind would gurgitate a stray thought, he would wonder why he had never discovered this before. But he would not dwell on that too long, because in this new place, nothing mattered, either.

And that pleased him.

It pleased him, because he did not question it. Because he could not question it.

In this place, he was nothing. Not even the luminescent speck he had been before. Before... when all things had mattered, and he with them.

Before. When there had been hurt coursing like poison in his veins. The time of red and yellows... of pettiness and little white feet that trampled the black taint of murder from his soul.

_Rin. _The endless cosmos whispered.

Even now, in peace, it whispered.

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**Review**, s'il vous plait.


	6. Chapter 6

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha._**

**A/N: This story breaks my heart, because it is so full and I just can't seem to be able to write it all down. It REALLY breaks my heart, because I had the next two chapters all written up and finally sorted and I was satisfied, I just had the epilogue to do, when my computer decided to crash on me and I lost both chapters. :( So.. the reason for so long without any updates was because of my broken heart, and the fact that I simply _could not_ bring myself to write it all over again. Especially since I barely remember what I wrote that last time. :(  
**

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"The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along." Rumi

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Kagome could not feel her heart beating.

It was the first thing she noticed, after she had seen the white hair. After she had had the endless thoughts; the jumble of crammed images struck down, and blinded by the tiny glint of the lone white hair peeking out of its muddy grave, and she had dug, and cried, and pulled, and prayed, and finished digging. And had had no more tears to shed left.

After she had followed a silver hair into the ground, like a lifeline- thinking it was Inuyasha; thinking it would take her back- that it must have appeared for a reason. Because she missed him, so terribly that the longing caked in the crevices of her many wounds, bloating and thickened, until she thought she might burst.

- Because she had been thinking about him, could not clear her mind of his fading white visage, familiar liquid eyes, and she was sorry,_ so sorry that she did not think she could ever even tell him- and why did she keep thinking he was dead? when he was not dead- no- could not be- because she needed him, and she hadn't meant to- it had been the wrong wish, the wrong thing to say, wrong_ wrong wrong_..._

She had dug till the sensitive pads under her nail-beds throbbed and lost feeling. Until she had bled and had almost forgotten what she had been digging for in the first place. One hand at a time. Kagome felt like a dog, digging for a bone, except that she _wasn't_ the dog; she was the tiny, useless, pathetic human who had not even gotten the one thing she had been assigned to do, right. But she dug for the bone, nonetheless... because... because there was a hair.

White, silver, beautiful hair-

..._caught in the breeze, in a gentle ebb and flow, as it tried to flee through the dark gaps between the trees._

- that would lead her to salvation. That would make something happen, like in all the stories; all the myths so full of magic and surreality. So like her life; _if you wish for something hard enough-_

It told her that she needed to dig. She needed to hold onto this one last gift from the universe.

_Because she was lost. And he was the first thing she saw, as she stumbled out of that well.... As she tumbled out onto the forest, with a centipede at her tail- and he was there. Hanging for dead on the tree, like an exhausted man at the morrow of a battle; like a slack red kimono hung in a forgotten corner of the forest. _

The darkness built little bricks around her, layer by layer, pulling her into its embrace. Kagome kept raking the grainy, dirty floor: digging. Until the inky smudges of age and soil gave up on this small shed of light at the end of her tunnel, the hair, and let it go.

_And she saw the arrow. Glowing like everything that meant something in the end, in this strange, fantastical world. It was protruding from his chest._**_  
_**

She grasped it in her fist, gently, and tugged, but the hair was wedged-

_-and it wouldn't pull out. She tried harder- with the determined intent of a selfish impulse. She needed him out because _she _would not survive without him at her side. So she grasped the shaft once more, and felt the tidal energy bubble in her core, and give a roar-_

Except that she no longer had the heart to break something so precious as a silver hair. Instead, wrapping it gently around one blackened finger, Kagome ground at the earth around it with the fingers of her other hand, trying to weed it out like a precious plant. Trying to find him; Trying to quietly stay distracted.

Trying to fight off the demons, on her own.

_Because he was not dead, she knew. Just waiting. _

_Though he did not know it, he had been waiting for her to come and release him all of his life. _

And then there were two strands of hair... and then three, and ten and suddenly enough to cover the hole she had carefully dug, like a pool unicorn blood, _alluring white, curse and blessing_. Only, as she touched it, Kagome felt something strange coursing through it...

_A throb. _

******A scent; a memory, a tug at the back of her neck. **

******The scent bid her to remember something, but all that was comin****g to her mind was Inuyasha, and it wasn't quite right. The pulse, the throb, brought a phantom sensation of the long-ago arrow shaft tingling across her palm, but the smell wasn't right, the straightening of her spine, the fear- it wasn't right. **

**The feeble recalls of holy energy blinked inside her.**

_**Throb.**_

**Suddenly the scent intensified, and with building terror, Kagome looked at the shimmering pool of white hair, as if for the first time, and saw how different it looked. None of the abrazen, familiar sunlit sheen to it anymore, but the colour of the Moon on a cold night. Eyes widening, Kagome felt an answering energy flare inside herself and through a sudden clarity of vision, Kagome saw the fraud clearly. Coated around each of the strands she had so lovingly been tugging at was a glass like wall of youki-**

** Kagome stopped digging immediately, holding out her hands in front of her impulsively, and scrunching up a face in fright.**

_"You're even more pathetic than before, Kikyou. Look at you. You can't even defend yourself."_

Something sharp twisted itself inside Kagome's gut, and the ground underneath her knees gave a lurch. A weak tendril of panic shot in her stomach, and she wondered if she was going to be sick again. Squeezing her eyes shut, she felt the leaden chains of fatigue unwavering, and begged- "No..._"_

_"Stop calling me Kikyou! I'm Kagome. KA-GO-ME!"_

There was a hum, and the shoot inside her trembled in its growth-

_A centipede burst out of the well; rushing over a forest-_

A burst of liquid light-

_A canopy of trees-_

"No!"

_She had wished a terrible wish-_

_"Kikyou!" -No, no, no._

_Kagome.  
_

Kagome opened her eyes just in time as she felt the ground shift beneath her, cracking, and a sudden blare of youki burst through the crevices, hitting her in the face- Kagome's eyes tightened shut, her hands lighting up at once; hot, scalding energy scourging through her veins in response. There was a deafening, soundless, break of energy and then pockets of air seemed to appear under the hardened , trembling, earth and the whole thing upturned and collapsed.

Kagome screamed: a dry croak cutting through the sound of hurtling soil. And before all of the layered chunks had dismantled, a cold, ungiving ground had smacked agaisnt her bottom once more, jolting her stomach into her lungs and heart with one quick jerk, her knees knocking against something _hard- _like two very rounded rocks- and a sickening smell began to curl in a cloud around her.

She coughed. She spat. The air swirled with shadows and the smell of rotten bones, burnt pure, and she could not see anything at first. Kagome blinked a watering eye open-

_-She had been about to groan, taking a deep breath ready to grunt, to throw herself backwards against the slope of well-dung and flop exhausted, ready to scream for_-

Two yellow eyes peered through the shadows at her.

Her heart stopped.

Swirl by individual swirl, clean air permeated the disintegrated youkai remains to sketch out narrow, slanted eyes, dark blue stripes, tattered grey silk, and a distant, terrifying memory of a Demon Lord.

Swallowing her groan, her grunt and her scream, Kagome let it all own in a rush of air through her nose, and in absolute defeat, slumped deflated, sideways on her knees, looking death straight in the eyes.

***

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**AN: Please, please, please, please Review. **


	7. Chapter 7

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Inuyasha.**

****A/N: You may have received an update alert. There is, in fact, no actual update in chapters, except that the previously homeless clip about Sesshoumaru's unconsciousness is now Chapter 5. Hence the chapter update alert. As always, I am sorryyyyy for the inconvenience!**

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Love is drowning in a deep well  
All the secrets and no one to tell  
Take the money... honey...  
...Blindness.

A little death, without mourning,  
No cause, and no warning,  
Baby a dangerous idea... that almost makes sense

Love is blindness; I dont want to see,  
won't you wrap the night  
around me?

Oh my love... blindness.

_Love is blindness, U2_

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Then it was time to wake.

Something strange happened in the atmosphere of his mind. The undefinable haze shifted; the eons and sharply ticking moments cleared into perspective. Time had returned, and with it, it brought the tumbling parade of memories, gavotting in a stream, like a tide of mountain water, filling a void of naked earth.

The Demon of the the bone-eater well awoke with a head full of faces, without a name. His eyes gained sight with the same suddenness as his mind, and there was swirls upon gritty swirl of dusty decay invading his world. His limbs felt numb, having held an age-long vigil, his bones stiff and unmovable. Tiny splinters of bone mingled with the sharp shards of broken stones rained over and before him, embedding themselves in the stiff spaces between his hair. Dust, dust, it blinded his new found sight, and the demon breathed the course air into his lungs, nearly retching.

The scent of death that had lulled him to his sleep greeted his sensitive nose like an old friend, but stronger. Awoken, as well, like him, caught in the overwhelming state of new found animation.

He blinked. Something soft and warm crashed onto him from the chaos.

"Oof!" he heard, and he might have moved- would have lashed out, spiked youki, bared teeth, claws, swords, blood- but he did not.

The lord of the West breathed in this new sight, thinking he had smelt this before, faced this foe, _been here, _before.

He watched, unblinking.

Slowly, with the settlng chaos, he made out a haggard visage, just at the edge of familiarity; a crouching, worn miko caked in dirty mud, and dressed, ironically, like a sunny day.

Without blinking, the demon lord felt the ghost of a gap-toothed smile graze against his eyelids.

He sighed. So quietly, he did not think she could have heard it, but he glanced up anyways. Her chest was raised, and her eyes broken, and he imagined that she might have released a sigh of her own, but that she caught sight of him.

A question formed in the dusty edges of his mind.

The oddly familiar girl before him grunted, instead, body slumping like a lifeless corpse, newly unsheathed from a sword. The demon gazed at her, curiously.

_Miko._

Below the creaking stir of his heart, he wondered if she could give him back his name.

__

In the end, there had been nothing else she could have done.

So she laughed. And in her lonesome, ringing chimes, Kagome felt the feeble shards of her heart grind against each other in silent agony.

She had felt her innards flinch in cold shock at the sight of his dusty, statuesque form. She had drawn in her breath immediately, and felt her eyes widen, mind racing through a beaten track, taking in everything. Taking in this; _Him. _And willed for it all to make sense. For it to be better, somehow better than it was.

And for a moment- one brief, unending moment, she had looked him straight in the eyes, and seen the sheen of opaque lifelessness in them, and stilled to her very core.

His skin was pale, as it ever was. His eyes shimmering amber and gold under the shadow of his unflickering lids. Unwavering, as ever they had been. But to Kagome he had looked dead. And the single thought alone had wiped all else- her shock at finding _him_; her disappointment; her pain; her foggy numbness- clear from her consciousness, and she had felt a thin whimper escape from her throat.

_Dead_? a small voice that sounded a very little like her old self whispered in her heart. And it sounded upset. Not sad, not broken and old like the voice she had so resently adopted. Not squenched of all it's selflessness, but living. Just barely- but there she was, in that small worried thought.

For a moment, that one endless moment, his sight alone had brought a small piece of her soul to life again. And she had wanted to fix it, to reach out and touch him, and fix him, heal him. To rescue him, as her old self would have wanted to do. Something soft and desperate had rekindled, and she had opened her mouth to call out to him, to say something, to announce her regret to the universe at large, when just as suddenly, the moment had shifted and fled.

-Then he was awake. Not dead, not frozen, but simply still. Menacing.

Through flat eyes, glimmering in the faint light, he watched her through the dust.

The spider inside her heart quailed. Kagome felt something slowly building, something just returned wash out of her like foot prints in the rain. The reality that she had not at first considered tapped at her conscience and finally slipped in, and the world had waited. Hushed and expectant, through painfully familiar golden eyes, it had watched her and waited. It had been almost like they had spoken to her, those eyes. Like a child hiding behind a corner to jump out at you, with an expression of expectant desire, the small flecks of topaz memory peaked out at her, from the deep folds of liquid amber and called her to do something. With every line of his face, every strand of his limp, white hair, his presence mocked and awaited her.

And, in the end, there really had been nothing else left to do. No shock left in her to surface.

Because of course it was not going to be Inuyasha. Of course, of course, after everything that had happened, after the cosmic joke had been unveiled in its entiretly, there would be the Laugh.

So she laughed. And laughing, she shifted in her jammed corner, and dared- _dared- _to lean in closer to him, and let her suddenly flowing tears fall on his stiffened, age-old hakamas.

Of course, this was how she was going to die.

In a twisted ending, at the doorstep of her home; in the heart of her shrine, following the murder of her beloved, to get killed by the brother who had sworn to see him dead.

Wasn't that the perfect end to the story?

Of course.

And as she laughed, her breath swept across, and blew the dust from his face. And in its gasping chimes, there was no hollow, embitterment. She really did, genuwinely find it humourous. A well-sketched out, elaborate farce; beautifully writ, and eloquently played out.

Kagome wondered if, before the end, she would be allowed to bow offstage.

So, stumbling and fumbling in the tightly confined space, grasping feebly at his upright knee and pulling herself into a better position, she let her head fall down in the thick space between them and bowed, through breaths of laughter, at _him. _

Someone had to be a witness, she thought. And here he was.

_(Here he was, _her empty chest cavity echoed. )

She had landed the leading role, after all. The thought made the feeble gasping of her mirth take more life.

Sesshoumaru. Lord of the West, King of the Moonlit country, daiyoukai of the epic tale, at the straggling butt of the joke.

Surely, it deserved a laugh.

And in the end, upon the closing of the curtains, as the spirit of the spider beat and scratched futilely inside her, a faraway miko whispered, at least she was not alone.

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A/N: Love you all for sticking around for so long! This one is dedicated to everyone who ever read and/or commented on this story. :)

**Review! **


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